Riding the Bullet
Chapter One
I've never told anyone this story, and never thought I would - not because I
was afraid of being disbelieved, exactly, but because I was ashamed ... and
because it was mine. I've always felt that telling it would cheapen
both me and the story itself, make it smaller and more mundane, no more than a
camp counselor's ghost story told before lights-out. I think I was also afraid
that if I told it, heard it with my own ears, I might start to disbelieve it
myself. But since my mother died I haven't been able to sleep very well. I doze
off and then snap back again, wide awake and shivering. Leaving the bedside
lamp on helps, but not as much as you might think. There are so many more
shadows at night, have you ever noticed that? Even with a light on there are so
many shadows. The long ones could be the shadows of anything, you think.
Anything at all.
I was a junior at the University of Maine when Mrs. McCurdy called about ma. My
father died when I was too young to remember him and I was an only child, so it
was just Alan and Jean Parker against the world. Mrs. McCurdy, who lived just
up the road, called at th ... read full excerpt from: Riding the Bullet ebook
